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Action Team Realty Colorado

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Action Team Realty Colorado

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Action Team Realty is a locally owned and operated, family run licensed real estate brokerage located in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Locally owned and operated for over 30 years, Action Team Realty is your premier real estate agency for the Colorado Springs area from Rentals to Forever Homes. 719-559-8400…Let’s Have A Conversation Our founder, Brent Hawker, has been a practicing REALTOR® in Colorado Springs since 1977. Our experienced broker, seven licensed agents, and dedicated support staff are knowledgeable, friendly, organized, and extremely hard-working. Because we have been doing business for a long while and have a diverse team of people working with us, we specialize in several areas of real estate to include:

Experienced and First-Time Home Buyers
Home Valuation
Military Relocation
Working With Buyers with VA Loans
Property Management
Development
New Build Homes
Distressed Properties
Flips
Bank Owned Properties
…and More!! At Action Team Realty we combine the best in good old-fashioned customer service with the latest and greatest in technology and web-based marketing. We attribute our success to a commitment to outstanding service, clear communication, and honesty. To meet our amazing team and find your next REALTOR®, check out the Agents album in our photos, or head over to our website at http://www.actionteamcolorado.com/agents/.

11/05/2026

Your empty house can be listed for rent by someone who doesn't own it.

Scammers copy the photos and the listing of a real house, post it as theirs, and take deposits from renters who never get the keys. The house is still yours. The renters lose their money, and it's your address on the listing.

It happens here. Springs police say local victims lose $1,000 to $3,000 each, and copied local listings are part of it (KOAA). The FTC says about half of reported rental scams start right here on Facebook.

The houses that get copied are often empty, with an old listing online that nobody checks. You can hope that isn't yours, or you can check. It comes down to 3 things.

Search your address every week on the rental sites and Facebook Marketplace.

Keep one current listing up, with a real name and phone number on it, so renters can tell which one is true.

If you find a copy, report it to the site that same day.

I'd say an empty house nobody watches online is the easiest one to copy. Watch yours until a tenant has the keys.

When did you last search your own address?

11/04/2026

Nervous to hand the keys over? The shape your rental is in decides who applies, and how fast it rents.

Good applicants scroll right past a tired house. I call the fix Hotel Ready: clean, working and safe, the way a hotel room feels when you open the door.

It takes some work and about 10 days before it's listed.

A Hotel Ready house draws applicants who take care of it. Once it's listed, it rents in about 15 to 30 days for us, nearer 30 in fall and winter.

Then every applicant is screened against the same written criteria. And 69% of our Colorado leases renewed this past year.

No good tenant is going to go into a house that's not clean.

What's the one thing you'd fix before you hand over the keys?

If you want the checklist for the hotel-ready house condition -> comment READY and I'll send you the Hotel Ready Guide.

11/03/2026

Getting your rental ready and wondering how fast it will rent? Don't make these 6 mistakes.

Every empty week costs a week of rent, and the mortgage keeps running.

Photos with furniture still in shrink the rooms. Shoot it empty.

Listing before the work is done. A renter who sees worn carpet rarely comes back after it's cleaned. You only get one first showing, so finish first, then list.

Mixed or burned-out bulbs make rooms look tired. Put matching LEDs in every light.

Skipping small repairs. A loose towel bar or a door that won't latch tells renters how the house has been cared for. Fix the small things. They cost the least and show the most.

Weeds and a brown lawn in the first photo. Clean the yard before photo day.

And missing the busy season. Summer moving season is fastest, and demand slows after the Fourth of July. For us a ready house rents in about 15 to 30 days, nearer 30 in fall and winter. Start early.

An empty month costs more than anything on your punch list.

Which one of the 6 does your house need right now?

Comment READY and I'll send you the Hotel Ready Guide.

10/29/2026

How fast can you get my house rented? Owners ask me that all the time. We get it listed in about 10 days, in 6 steps.

I can't promise the day it rents, but the mortgage keeps running, and every empty week costs a week of rent. Rush it, with photos before the work is done, and you end up listing it twice. So we do it in this order.

1. Our team does the move-out inspection, often 150 to 400 photos. The condition is on record, so the deposit is clear for you and the tenant.

2. Our leasing manager walks the house and writes one punch list with everything it needs.

3. You see the fixes and the costs before any big work. Anything big is your call, so there are no surprises.

4. Our vendors make it Hotel Ready: clean, working, safe and consistent, rechecked against the checklist.

5. Professional photos of the empty, finished house. Photos come last on purpose, because renters meet your house on their phone first, and you only get one first showing.

6. The listing goes live on Zillow and the major rental sites.

That's about 10 days from move-out, or about 15 if it needs new paint or carpet. Do it in order and you list it once, with photos that match the house.

What does your house need before it's ready to rent?

Comment READY and I'll send you the Hotel Ready Guide.

10/28/2026

"How quickly can you get my property rented out?" Owners ask me that a lot, and the answer starts with your photos.

In October a rental sits longer, nearer 30 days, so the first thing you want to cut is the price. But a renter meets your house on their phone, next to every other listing, long before they walk in. Photos taken while you're still packing, or before the work is done, show a house nobody picks.

If you have 20 different options, are you ever choosing the option that has all of the problems? No.

So finish the work, photograph the house empty, and list it once.

What did your listing photos look like the last time your house sat?

Comment READY and I'll send you the Hotel Ready Guide, with the checklist we use before photos.

10/27/2026

Can't sell the house without bringing money to closing? You're not the only one in Colorado Springs right now.

Half the listings here cut their price in August, the Colorado Association of REALTORS says. Meanwhile a good house is listed within 72 to 96 hours once it's Hotel Ready, and rents in about 15 to 30 days (nearer 30 this time of year). You keep your low rate.

Renting has its own costs and a tax clock (talk to your CPA). But selling now locks in the loss, and renting well buys you time.

Run both numbers before you decide. Here is the link to the rent vs sell calculator: actionteamrentals.com/rent-sell-calculator

05/29/2026

There is an owner in Colorado Springs reading this right now who feels stuck.

Many owners who bought from 2020 onward are sitting in a difficult position. Not all of them. But a meaningful share. They paid market price or close to it, often used a VA loan or a low-down-payment program, and they have a mortgage that does not pencil against today's rents.

Now life is moving them. PCS orders. A job change. A bigger house for a growing family. They want to sell. And when they run the numbers, selling means writing a check at closing for thirty or forty thousand dollars to cover the gap.

That is the moment most owners feel trapped.

Here is what I tell them.

You are not trapped. You have an option most people overlook. You can rent the property and turn a forced move into a long-term investment instead of a one-time loss.

Here is why that math works over time.

A rental property earns four ways at once, not one. Most owners only look at cash flow. That is the first quadrant. If your rent does not cover your mortgage today, cash flow is negative and that feels terrible.
But three other things are happening at the same time.
Your tenant is paying down principal on your mortgage every month. That is forced savings you would otherwise never make.

This is the part that seems counterintuitive at first. You used borrowed money to buy the asset. Your tenant is now paying down that borrowed money for you while you cover the interest. That is exactly how leverage builds wealth. Someone else is building your equity. It looks backward until you zoom out, and then you realize it is one of the quiet engines behind generational wealth.

The property is appreciating. According to Zillow, U.S. homes have averaged 4.5% appreciation per year since 2001. Appreciation compounds.

And the property generates tax benefits through depreciation and rental expenses that can offset rental income. Always talk to your CPA on the specifics.
Now layer those together over ten years instead of one month. The principal paydown, the appreciation, the tax benefits, and eventually positive cash flow as rents rise faster than your fixed mortgage payment. The math that feels brutal today often looks completely different at year seven or eight.

This is why I tell clients to treat a rental like a long-term investment, not a monthly subscription. Real estate has historically rewarded patience the way the stock market has. The worst thing you can do is sell at the bottom because the short-term math hurts.
Selling and writing a forty thousand dollar check at closing locks in that loss forever. You walk away with nothing to recapture it with.

Renting through it is how you give the investment a chance to do what real estate has historically done. Catch up. Compound. Eventually pay you back.
If you are in this situation right now, do not just look at this month's numbers. Look at the ten-year picture.
What is the long-term plan for your property if you are forced to move this year?

05/27/2026

Memorial Day. Office closed. Christy and I started up Cheyenne Mountain at 5am to chase the sunrise, one of my favorite things to do. Sixteen miles round trip, and we had already begun our descent when my phone caught service again. A string of messages came in from a tenant scheduled to move in that day.

Here is what had happened. We send every new tenant a welcome message through our property management software. It lays out when and where to pick up keys, how to handle rent funds, utility confirmation numbers, insurance paperwork. All of it. This tenant had received it. She had even replied to it.

But moving week is chaos for anyone, and this tenant was also pregnant and weeks from her due date. The details got lost in the noise. Understandable. Completely human.

The problem was on our side too. The move-in had been scheduled on a holiday. Our office was closed. Nobody caught it.

So I started making calls from the side of the mountain. I reached David, a team member who has been with us just over a month. He came in and handled the key exchange, and we got the tenant her keys earlier than the original time we had given her.

A small thing that made me smile. When we hired David, I intentionally looked for someone who lived close to our office. Future planning I did months ago quietly paid off on a holiday morning. He has been a rockstar addition to the team since day one.

Here is what I keep coming back to.

My team did everything right in the moment. They communicated through the right channel. They responded fast. They solved it. I am proud of how they handled it.

But the real lesson is not the save. It is the experience we ask tenants to navigate in the first place.

Think about how Airbnb walks you through a check-in. Or how an airline sends you flight reminders with each step laid out. Or a hotel confirming your arrival. Those systems guide you. They do not rely on you remembering one message from weeks ago.

Our move-in process still leans on an in-person key pickup and a tenant keeping track of details on their own. That may be a little antiquated.

So here is what we are building. With the help of AI, a guided check-in process that walks a tenant through every requirement leading up to move-in day. Step by step. Confirmations along the way. And eventually, the ability to remove the in-person pickup entirely. A tenant could receive a lockbox code and move in on their schedule, not ours.

Good teams save the day. Great systems make sure the day never needs saving.

The day a new tenant gets keys says a lot about who is managing your property. Was your last move-in smooth, or did you only hear about it if something went wrong?

05/22/2026

On Tuesday a few of our team members attended the May NARPM Colorado Springs Chapter luncheon. The board brought in a strong keynote on using AI to grow a property management business, and Drew Charles Bartlett did a great job stepping in to run the meeting while our president Charles D'Alessio was out for his daughter's graduation.

The speaker opened with a line that stuck with me. AI will not replace realtors, but realtors who use AI will outperform those who do not.

I would extend that to property management. AI is not here to replace what we do. It is here to make our jobs easier so we can focus on what actually matters, which is providing real value to our clients.

But here is the part I think gets missed.

You do not flip a switch and become an AI-powered company overnight. It happens step by step. It starts with how your team learns to communicate with the tools.

Two of the suggestions the speaker shared with the chapter stuck with me. The first was a prompt formula. Role, goal, context, format, tone. When you give the tool all five, you stop wasting time rewriting the same request over and over. The second was just as practical. End every prompt by telling the AI to ask you questions before it generates anything. That one change turns a frustrating back and forth into a real conversation.

That is where the synergy gets created.

When my team gets better at communicating with these tools, they digest information faster. They respond quicker. They spend less time fighting their inbox and more time on the phone with an owner who needs guidance. The owner gets a more responsive partner. The tenant gets faster answers. The team gets time back in their day.

Everyone in the ecosystem benefits when the people closest to the work get a little sharper.

The speaker said something at the very end that I agreed with completely. He uses AI as an assistant, not a replacement. He still wants to understand the why behind the work.

That is exactly the approach we are taking. Step by step. Tool by tool. Always with a person checking the work.

Thank you to the NARPM board for putting this together.

05/19/2026

One of the most underused tools in a rental property owner's arsenal is the 1031 tax deferred exchange.
Here is the short version.

When you sell an investment property that has appreciated, you typically owe capital gains tax on the gain. A 1031 exchange lets you defer that tax by rolling the proceeds into a replacement property of equal or greater value. You do not avoid the tax. You defer it. But deferring means your full equity keeps working in the next investment instead of sending a portion to the IRS at the time of sale.

Here is where it gets really interesting.

Do a 1031 again and again, deferring gains each time, and hold those properties until you pass away. Your heirs receive what is called a stepped-up basis. The property resets to its fair market value at the time of your passing. All of those deferred capital gains effectively disappear. Your heirs could sell with little to no capital gains tax owed.

Not deferred. Gone.

That is generational wealth building done right.
This comes up in property management more than people realize. We work with owners who have held properties for 10, 15, 20 years. Significant appreciation. Deferred maintenance stacking up. Returns softening. For some of those owners the right move is not to keep grinding on a depreciating asset. It is to divest strategically, roll into something better, and repeat.

The difference between a property manager who takes directions and one who actually manages an asset is knowing when to start this conversation.
The mechanics matter. 45 days from the sale to identify a replacement. 180 days to close. A qualified intermediary must hold the proceeds. Touch the cash during that window and you lose the deferral on the entire transaction. These deadlines do not bend.
Most rental property owners never think about their exit strategy until they are already in it. The time to think about it is while the asset is still performing.

Have you thought about the long-term exit strategy for your rental property?

Address

6265 Lehman Drive, Ste 100
Colorado Springs, CO
80918

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 5pm
Tuesday	8am - 5pm
Wednesday	8am - 5pm
Thursday	8am - 5pm
Friday	8am - 5pm

Telephone

+17195598400

Website

http://www.actionteamrentals.com/

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